Dinner parties are supposed to be about good food and even better company — not surprise invoices.

When her friend invited her over for homemade dry pot, she didn’t expect to get hit with a bill before the meal even started.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

AITA for finding it distasteful that the dinner host asked to split the cost of groceries/ingredients?

My friend recently moved into a new apartment and invited me to dinner this weekend because she’s craving dry pot.

For those of you who don’t know, dry pot is a stir-fried medley of veggies and meat all mixed up with a bunch of fancy spices like star anise and cardamom.

It was a cute idea and my first time visiting her place for dinner, so I accepted and asked if it’d make sense for me to cook something too (it’s a small kitchen).

But things didn’t stay cute for long.

Here’s where I personally thought it got weird — she suggested I bring a bottle of wine and then casually mentioned that she’d like me to pitch in for the cost of ingredients and spices.

Now, neither of us are strapped for cash. We both live in a high cost of living city but have very good jobs and financial stability.

She can’t help but remember all the times her friend has benefitted from her good hospitality.

I’ve also hosted this friend before plenty of times at my own apartment — not for dinner, but for cocktails. I worked as a bartender a few years ago, and since then have accumulated my own bar setup at home (20+ bottles of liquor and bitters, homemade syrups and infusions, clear ice molds, cute glassware, the works).

That was maybe seven years ago, and since then my place has become a go-to spot among my circle of friends for an occasional pre-dinner drink.

I felt like given this context, it was kind of odd for her to ask me to pitch in for money given that it’s never come up before and I know her financial situation.

Her friend didn’t seem to see the problem with this at all.

But she got upset at my pushback, and her rationale is that dry pot is expensive to make and that she’d be the one doing the cooking and cleanup.

As of the time of this post, she’s spent nearly $80 on specialty spices, and she’s still got to get another $100+ worth of “imported and specialty” groceries (from H-Mart, lol).

However, she sees several problems with this.

Apparently this dry pot is also going to make 5–6 servings, which I feel like is even more odd because:

1. I was just planning to be there for dinner and wasn’t counting on leftovers.
2. You can control how much you cook at one time, so you don’t have to make that much food in one go if you don’t want to.

In her eyes, her friend is violating pretty much every rule of being a good host.

My take is that if you’re offering to host and cook dinner, buying the food and putting in the time to cook is part of being a good host.

But her friend sees things very differently.

Her point of view is that my making drinks for her throughout the years isn’t equivalent to cooking a full dinner, and that it’s very normal to ask someone to pitch in for the cost of food — and that if I’d asked her to pitch in for liquor at any time, she would’ve happily done so.

So Reddit — AITA for being disgruntled at being asked to split the cost of the groceries and some of the spices?

What a conundrum.

Redditors chime in with their two cents.

This commenter agrees this is pretty shady behavior on her friend’s part.

It’s acceptable to ask a house guest to bring a small item, but certainly not to front the cost of the meal being served.

It kind of sounds like this friend is trying to subsidize the cost of her weekly groceries at this point.

This friend definitely isn’t being truthful about her motives.

If you’re going to be a good host, you shouldn’t be billing your friends like they’re your business partner.

Maybe next time her friend will save the awkwardness and just spring for takeout.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.